


We're the kids who wanna play with the dead

by Lizardlicks



Category: Monster Prom (Visual Novel)
Genre: Acts of Vandalism, Bonding Through Crimes!, Breaking and Entering, Destruction of School Property, Gen, Ill Advised Party Planning, Raising the Dead, References to Drugs, Technical Grave Robbing, mobility impairment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26322874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizardlicks/pseuds/Lizardlicks
Summary: It's not easy being green. And dead. And having woken up in a coffin with no memories of who he was, how he got there, or for how long he had been six feet under. Brian is just going to have to make the most of it.
Relationships: Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 26
Kudos: 50





	1. My monsters keep me company

Brian Yu does not remember how he died. He doesn’t remember most things about his life before this one, actually. He does remember the night he came back, though, quite vividly in fact. Mostly, he remembers being awoken VERY rudely by persistent, if muffled, scraping. At first he tried to ignore it and return to sleep, but it’s rhythm wasn’t steady enough to be tuned out as whitenoise.

He looked from side to side, and determined either he was blind or it was too dark to see a damn thing. He reached out slowly, finding his limbs stiff and sluggish to respond, and encountered soft velour under his fingertips, only a few inches above his face. The material was upholstering something hard that did'nt yield to casual attempts to push at it. Metal, or wood maybe he thought.

Shk! ...Thpp. 

Shk! ...Thpp.

Shk! ...Thpp.

That damnable scraping was getting louder, and unless he found it’s source and put a stop to it, he wouldn’t be able to fall back into blissful slumber. He turned onto his side and found it an uncomfortably tight fit for his shoulders. To his left he found the same soft fabric over a hard, solid surface. He rolled again, in the opposite direction and found the same to his right. If he had remembered being human at that point, he might have begun to panic. As it was, he just heaved an annoyed grunt.

The scraping was right above him, seemingly unaware of his stirring. If he couldn’t leave this apparent box to stop it, maybe he could startle it enough to drive it away. He pulled back a fist in the little space he had and rapped against the ceiling above him. At first nothing changed, so he tried again, with more force.  
  
“Hey...” His voice came out a dry rasp. He coughed, cleared his throat, and tried once more. “Hey! Cut... that out.”

The scraping faltered. Brian had a brief moment of smug satisfaction. All was silent again, and as he let his head plop back onto the small pillow under it, he could feel his eyes slipping closed (not that it mattered in the perfect dark). 

This was interrupted by a blinding flash of blue that resolved itself into the glowing, grinning face of a girl. From the fact that he could see through her to the suddenly illuminated wall above him, Brian surmised she wasn’t exactly interacting well with the laws of physics.

“Hey, Boo! Oh my gosh, Scott was right, there IS a person in here!” 

“Bwah!” Brian shouted, and shoved the floating face. It popped back through the ceiling and plunged him into darkness again. Overhead there was a commotion, a brief explosion of muffled voices, too distant to be intelligible, but the volume and rushed pace held excitement. He didn’t want excitement, he wanted a nap.

An almost thunderous THUD rattled his box. Loud, frantic scratching replaced all the previous noises. Brian did not have enough time to wonder if he should be more worried than aggravated, because it changed in quality within the minute. No longer muffled, something clawed against the ceiling, leaving the sound of wood cracking into splinters ringing in his ears. It paused then, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think that meant he would be left in peace.

Sure enough, the wood around him shuddered. The thing above him grunted, and heaved, and with an ear-splitting CRACK Brian was blined for a final time that night, not from darkness, but from the brilliant, silver glow of a waning gibbous moon. It silhouetted the hulking form that loomed over him; from the backlighting Brian could only discern wild hair, impossibly broad shoulders and pointed ears. It grinned, letting all of his very sharp teeth glint, and tossed the wooden coffin lid aside.  
  
“Hey there new friend,” it- he- barked. Literally barked, there was something unmistakably lupine to his voice. “Woah, guys, he’s a beefy boy!” And then he was reaching down and grabbing Brian around his bicep. He wasn’t rough about it, but there was absolutely no resisting being hauled up by that grip. He lifted Brian up, up and up- six feet to be exact- and placed him onto perfectly manicured sod. Well. Perfectly manicured except for the dots of irregular shaped stones, and one gaping hole in the ground that he’d just been evicted from.

Brian gawked. An extremely unlikely cadre of... people- yes, people is what he was going to go with- gawked right back. There was the blue girl from before, sort of floating in mid air a few inches above the ground. Her whole body had that translucent quality, but her clothes were strangely solid. Leaning against a shovel stuck point first into the ground was a bored looking, dark-skinned girl with fiery hair. Literally fiery, as in it was made of actual fire. Beside her was a third girl, almost disconcertingly normal looking compared with the other two on first glance, but her skin was alarmingly pale, and laced with even stitches over deep lines. Her hair was dark but shot through with a streak of white.

Brian blinked, slowly. The fiery girl sighed. “Damn. Strike out. I should have known Vera would sell us a bogus map to the grave of Jared the Beheader.”

“At least the animation spell was real,” the stitched girl offered. “Honestly, I was surprised _that_ was the part that worked.”

The big guy that had pulled Brian out of what he was now _very_ aware was his _grave_ landed beside him on all fours with another teeth rattling thud, then shook violently, throwing grave dirt everywhere, and sat back on his haunches. From this angle Brian could see the great big bushy tail wagging behind him so hard it was almost spinning like a propeller. He seemed unaware it was continuing to fling dirt. “You look like you’d be great at throwing a ball! Hey! Maybe you should try out for our team?”

Stitches grimaced. “Wooooah, woah, slow down there, Scott. Easy. Down boy. Let him get his bearings first.” 

“Yeah,” Hothead chimed in, “We don’t even know if his lights are all on upstairs.”  
  
Brian flexed his fingers into a fist then raised it and flipped her off. “Oop.” She grinned. “He sure understood _that_.”

“Yeah, there isn’t even football tryouts, or school right now, IT’S ALMOST SPRING BREAK! We came out here to wake up JTB for his legendary party planning skillz!” Floating girl punched the air. “We can’t let a little set back like grave mix-ups get in the way of planning the best spring break bash of literally FOREVER!”

“I think we’re going to have to put that on hold, Polly. We don’t have any more scrolls of Animate Dead, and we can’t leave this big guy here to hang.” It was clear Stitches was the only one acting as the voice of reason at this point, and she was also clearly frazzled.  
  
The ghost- Polly- pouted. “Maybe tall, dark, and green is a legendary party animal too? Whadaya say, big guy, let's get cranked!”  
  
Brian took a long moment. He tipped his head from one shoulder to the other, still feeling stiffness in his movements. His eyes wanted to close, and there was some kind of lingering cold deep under his skin that he couldn’t rightly attribute to the night air. “I would like... to go back to bed.”

Polly resumed pouting. The big, furry guy- Scott, she’d called him- craned his head to look around. “You can’t sleep in a graveyard. What if it rains?”  
  
“Tell that to Sleeping Nasty over there,” Hothead said and nodded at something behind them. Brian turned and looked over his shoulder. What she had alluded to was impossible to miss. Only a row away there was what had once probably been a very grand and expensive headstone. It rose as a short Corinthian pillar over the others, and seated on it’s pinnacle was an angel, wings mantled, sheltering the dead beneath and hands turned upward, beseeching on their behalf. It was covered bottom to top in freshly sharpied blasphemies and profanities, and it no longer had a head. Sprawled cat-like, almost liquid, and sound asleep in its granite lap was unmistakably a demon. Red skin, pointy horns, spade tail and all. 

Brian felt a brief flash of jealousy for this creature being completely oblivious to the ruckus that had dislodged him from his not-so-eternal slumber. Stitches coughed, and his attention snapped back to her. “Ah. Well. Seeing as we’re kind of responsible for the whole raising the dead and all, and also the whole digging up your grave thing- sorry about that- I guess, you could come stay with us? If you’d like too.”

He considered it. Really, what choice did he have? It was clear that even if he crawled back into his coffin and asked them just to bury him again, he was still and would from this point on forever be a member of the living dead. And while sleep sounded very nice, he didn’t fancy he could keep snoozing through an eternity of nothing. He rolled his shoulders in a shrug.

“Sure.”

Stitches beamed. “Cool! I’m Vicky, by the way. This is Amira, that’s Polly, to your right is Scott, and behind you is Damien. Speaking of, could someone go wake him up and tell him we’re gonna bail?”

“Oh! Me! I will!” Scott was off with a bounding leap. Brian almost envied his seemingly bottomless enthusiasm. The girl who had now introduced herself as Vicky stepped up to him and reached for his hand. She barely came up to his chest, but she still moved like she wanted to be extra gentle, just to be sure, and her smile was reassuring. It was kind of touching. All things considered, Brian couldn’t really find it in himself to have any hard feelings. It was an accident, after all, and maybe he could get used to being alive again.

“That doesn’t look like the ultimate party animal, Jared the Beheader, who’s parties were so legendary people would literally lose their heads to attend. Who is this noob?”

Brian found in that moment that even his startle reflex was slow. Mostly, he froze, which didn’t look like anything outwardly happening. He turned slowly and sure enough the new voice that had spoken right behind his shoulder belonged to the roused demon boy. He leaned in, headless of personal space. It might have been a more effective intimidation tactic if he were taller. Brian amended his first mental inventory from horns, plural, to horn, singular; the right-side one looked as if it had been snapped off.

“This here,” Amira said as she slipped between the two, chin up and chest out, “is the newest, coolest, chillest dude on the block. And his name issssuuuuuuh...” She looked up.

“Brian,” he supplied the word like it had never been lost. He could remember nothing before this night, but the name was right, and he knew that with a certainty of conviction that surprised him. 

The demon scoffed. “What kind of lame ass name is _Brian_?”

“No more lame... than Damien... I’d imagine.”

He watched as the demon bristled, pupils narrowing to slits, and lip curling back over a fang. He had a suspicion that naming Damien before he’d actually given it had put him off, but it seemed he was smart enough to figure out one of the others had told Brian before he rejoined the group. Brian held steady, not breaking eye contact with the attempted stare down. A handful of silent seconds passed, before Damien broke it first with a “Tssh. Whatever. Don’t fuck around with a prince of hell, or I’ll give you a matching hole on the other side of your face, rotbreath.” Hole? Huh...

And with that Damien shoved past them, bumping Amira into Brian along the way. He caught and steadied her back onto her feet.

“Well, he seems... charming.”

“Oh don’t mind Damian, he’s just gotta go through the territorial threat displays first. There’s a sweet core under all the prickles, threats of violence, and gasoline. Very, _very_ deep under.” Vicky patted his chest. “Let’s go! Amira and I share a dorm on campus. You can crash there while we get everything sorted out.”

“Sounds good... to me.” And he allowed his new monster acquaintances to lead him out of the graveyard and into the city of Monsteropolis.

“HOOOO SHIT guys, I just got the best idea ever!! COMBINATION WELCOME AND SPRING BREAK PARTIES! Two parties at once! That’s like... at least quadruple the party!”


	2. In the dead of night I hear them sigh

Dew glittered under the moonlight at this hour. It was chilly, and beautifully clear, and Brian thought that if they were farther away from light pollution he could have seen the dew drops mirrored in the sky. An alive human might have shivered and wanted for a coat to pull over the worn funerary suit he wore, but Brian only felt sluggish, and a little foggy. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

As he took in his surroundings on their walk, the reason that the group of friends had needed a map of the graveyard was very apparent. Most of the headstones they passed were moss covered and pitted by weather. More than a few of them were broken. No one had tended these grounds in a long time, and nature had already started its inevitable march of reclamation years, even decades ago. It was entirely possible that the angel had been missing its head long before Damien ever set foot here.

Vicky tried to combat any awkward silences by keeping a running chatter going. It was interrupted frequently by Polly interjecting something about their party plans, or Scott making sudden, and somewhat bewildering mental connections to sports, while Amira seemed to take immense pleasure in flip-flopping between egging them on and reeling them back just enough to keep either from going off on a wild tangent. Damien for his part didn’t say much at all; he was walking a couple paces ahead, shoulders hunched unconsciously in a way that suggested he was listening but trying to pretend he wasn’t. The old _I’m too cool for all of you, but also I don’t want to be left out_ schtick. Brian was content to watch their dynamics play out, only adding an occasional, “hmm,” or, “ah” when it seemed conversationally appropriate. He didn’t know them, and there wasn’t much else to say. He supposed he didn’t really know anyone at this point.

They reached the entry gate soon enough. Both it, and the wrought-iron atop the brick wall it had been attached to were so rusted that past rains had left behind bloody red streaks on the masonry. Brian noticed the chain had been sheared, and the gate’s hinges were bent. The friends had quite literally broken into this place, but he doubted anyone would see it or care. 

Where there had once been a road in, the path was now completely overgrown and the trees here crowded out the light of moon overhead. At this point Scott broke away and trotted ahead. He nudged Damien in the shoulder and held up his fist as he passed him, and the demon almost reflexively bumped knuckles before remembering he was supposed to be pissed. He glared over his shoulder, daring anyone to comment, but the girls were too busy still chatting, and Brian was more interested in observing.

That did prompt his fuzzy mind to circle back to what the demon had said to him earlier, though. Something about matching holes in his face? It was an odd feeling to suddenly realize he had no idea what his own face looked like. He didn’t _feel_ like he had a hole. Welp, no one was paying any attention to him now, so he absently started to pat around. 

Left side was whole and intact, not even a piercing that he could feel. He supposed he could have tattoos. Holy shit what if he did have a face covered in tattoos? Brian was starting to really want a mirror. Nose was there right where it should be, thankfully. Both eyes, check. Fuck, that would have raised a lot more questions about how exactly reanimation worked that he wasn’t ready to confront yet. The right side is where his exploring fingers stuttered over a dip where the corner of his mouth should have been. He followed the line between smooth skin and puckered flesh as it curved up under his cheekbone. Then he moved down and encountered the hard wall of enamel. Christ fuck, those were his god damned _teeth_. Maybe the mirror could wait.

Scott reappeared in that moment, and Brian was grateful for the distraction.

“Road is this way, guys!” He didn’t actually stop, just circled around them in a big loop, then dashed ahead again. Everyone had to scramble after him with little warning. He led them through crowding honeysuckle and grasping blackberry canes, sometimes stopping to snuffle in circles, and other times leaping ahead until he’d disappeared entirely through the brush, and the whole lot of them would have to stop and wait patiently for Scott to realize he'd left them behind. Brian caught glimpses of the abandoned past scattered in the dark underbrush as they crashed through; a bicycle, tireless and bent against a tree, the long hallowed shell of a Volkswagen buried up to its fenders, even a pair of sneakers tied together and tossed over a branch.

The woods did not thin gradually, like some fairytale nightmare dispersing in the rays of dawn, but ceased existing quite abruptly at the gravel shoulder of a disused country road. On the other side the landscape dropped away from them steeply, down into rolling fields that gave Brian vertigo. He had to blink a few times before it would pass. Rising in the distance was whatever city that had stolen the light from the stars.

A very well used sedan, and an even more worn pickup were parked here beside the road. Amira walked over to the truck and dumped her shovel into the bed. “Welp, so much for plan A. Wanna regroup tomorrow afternoon and brainstorm over pizza?”  
  
Vicky looked concerned. “I think we need to take care of Brian first, don’t you?”  
  
“He’s a big, strapping zombie, Vic, I don’t think he’s going to wander off into traffic.”

“I might.” His smile quirked slowly into a wry grin, and Amira snorted.

“Haha. I meant that we can figure out both, it’s not a one or the other thing.”  
  
“Ooh OOH! We have lots of rooms at my house, he can stay with me!” Scott interjected. Vicky very quickly vetoed that.

“Not that your family isn’t... Lovely! But I think maybe we’d better wait to introduce Brian to your cousins.”

“Oh. I guess they do get kind of antsy around strangers.” He sagged and pouted. Scott being so put out was probably just about the second saddest thing that a person could witness, second only to a literal kicked puppy. Brian tried to give him a sympathetic pat, and that seemed to work. He immediately perked up and started to wag his tail again.

“Don’t look at me.” Polly held up her hands. “My rooms are all ocupado. Got important projects. Very important. For school, if anyone asks.”  
  
“School’s out for the next two weeks,” Amira reminded her. Polly shrugged.

“I really like, um. Chemistry! Suuuupers important.”

Vicky gawked for a second then asked, “Are you really cooking meth in _every_ room, Polly?”

“It’s not _all_ meth! I UH. I mean, no, how could you say such a thing?”

“Yeah, Vick.” Amira grinned. “The bathroom is for toilet wine.”  
  
“CHYEEAAAH!” Polly high fived her.

“I can take him-”

“NO.” All three of the girls interrupted Damien dead in his tracks. Somehow the demon had gotten up behind Brian without his noticing again, but the only response he'd mustard was to clench his jaw a little. It seemed like his startle reflex was there, but just as slow to react as the rest of him. When he glanced back, Damien was snarling and doing something _weird_ with his eyes.

“Fuck you, you’re no fun! I wasn’t going to bring him back in _too_ many pieces.”

“You are not taking him to hell, Damien,” Vicky told him with a tone that shut the rest of that particular conversation branch down before it went any further.

He growled. “FUCK! Fine. I’m out of here before this night gets even more lame. Later, losers!” He pulled some kind of flask out of his jacket and carelessly tossed it to the ground where it shattered. A wave of vapor hit Brian in the nose... It smelled like gasoline? Before he could question it, Damien made a flicking motion, and a little spark launched from his fingers toward the puddle. Brian felt himself get yanked to one side just before the flames that erupted could scorch his face. It didn’t seem to bother Damien, who just stepped right in. He flipped them off with both hands, and his last shout sounded like it was getting sucked down into a very long tunnel. 

“GET FUUUUUUuuuuuuucked!”

The flames spiraled in a whirlwind, climbing much higher than the puddle of gas had any fuel for, flashed, then winked out. The demon had disappeared with them. Vicky heaved a deep sigh and rubbed her face.

"Okay, guess that leaves us with the original plan. You'll be with me and Ami. Sorry, we haven’t got a spare room, but the couch really is pretty comfy. And we’ll keep working on this until we find something more permanent, I promise!”

“That’s okay,” Brian told her. He was really only half paying attention anyway, still a little dazed by what had just happened. “As long as it’s not crushed velvet.”

“Shotgun,” Amira said as she popped the passenger side door of the sedan and plopped into the seat, apparently considering the matter already settled.

Vicky started to follow suit then turned back to Scott. “Oh hey, can you bring over some clothes for Brian? There’s no shops open right now, but we need to get him something that’s not a moth-eaten suit, and I think you’re the closest one to his size.” Brian was dubious. He’d be swimming in any of Scott’s clothes, he was sure, but he admitted to himself he didn’t really have a choice. Vicky’s sweater would probably not look as cute on him.

“Sure!” Scott dashed back to the truck. He tried to roll acrobatically over the hood, mostly only succeeding in sliding down the front of it, then threw open his door and hopped in behind the wheel. The squeals of the poor truck’s protesting shocks went completely ignored. Polly fazed through the other side as he revved the engine to life, not bothering with things like ‘doors’ and ‘opening them’. Scott pulled out just a little too fast, sending gravel skittering as he swerved onto the road, and with that they were gone too. 

Vicky jingled her keys and slid into her spot in the sedan’s driver’s seat, which left Brian to squeeze into the back. He buckled very hastily, but Vicky wasn’t quite as reckless as they pulled away.

The old country road merged onto an old country highway after a few minutes, and as they drove Brian counted mile markers while his mind started to drift.


	3. The neighborhood's pretty dead at night

Brian wasn’t aware he’d dozed off in the back seat until Amira was shaking his shoulder.

“Hey, wake up, big green, we’re here.”

“Huwah...?" Brian’s head came up from the head rest and he rubbed his eyes. “Where’s... here?”

“Our dorm building. C’mon, I’ll show you around.” She stepped back to let him out of the car then closed the door behind him once he had his footing. They were parked in front of a long, and rather squat brick building that only rose up a few stories, practically dwarfed by the newer, sleeker looking glass and concrete things surrounding it. It had a sort of art deco feel to it, but only just; like someone ran into a budget wall and gave up. A stylized arch of masonry graced the top of the door, but the narrow windows were mostly stuck to the surface as an after-thought, and some where bricked over completely in bricks that didn’t match the originals, so as to make their absence all the more obvious. 

Buttresses and crenulations ran along the top, with impressively grotesque gargoyles placed every few yards. On second glance Brian realized one of the gargoyles was actually moving, perched on what was left of the broken off feet of the original, and happily trying to fit a whole slice of pizza in their mouth in one bite. They caught Brain’s eye and gave him a cheery wave. He returned it, if a bit delayed. 

Brian continued to take it all in as he slowly ambled after Amira. The front strip of lawn was just that, a strip, with more stern “no pets” signs than was entirely necessary. So of course one of those signs had a defiant pile of poo under it. Clumps of sad looking boxwoods that hadn’t seen a hedge trimmer in their entire lives were about all that passed for landscaping. Something with flickering red eyes hissed at him from underneath one. Brian decided it was none of his business.

Vicky was at the door trying to swipe a card over a sensor pad with no effect.

“Fucking.... Damn it, would you just-” her muttering was becoming increasingly agitated. As they got close to her, Vicky glanced over her shoulder to them and sighed. “Ami my card is on the fritz again, could you...?”

“Sure!” Amira stepped up to take her place and reached for her back pocket. And then into her other back pocket. And then her coat pockets. “Ooooor not.”

Vicky’s hands flew up into the air. “Are you kidding me!?”

“Must have left it on the table. Just do your zappy thing on it, they’ll swap it for another cheap piece of shit that doesn’t work again, anyway.”

“Don’t tell PGS _anything_.”

Amira’s hand flew to her chest and she gasped dramatically. “Vic! Would you accuse me of being a _narc_? After all the hijinks we’ve been through!”

“Shh! Just keep it down, would you? Brian, can you give me some cover here?” He looked around, confused at first, until Vicky gestured toward the roof and its pizza inhaling occupant with a nod, then he understood. He moved as surreptitiously as possible for a zombie of his size to block line of sight, while the girls swapped places so Amira stood to the other side to watch the sidewalk. Another quick glance to make sure they were in the clear, then Vicky rubbed her hands together and reached her palm out to the card reader. There was a brief flash of blue as an arc jumped between them and the door clicked open.

“Welcome home!” She announced brightly, and gestured for her friends to enter. As they pressed through into the hall, Amira clapped Brian on the shoulder.  
  
“Your first foray into aiding and abetting destruction of school property, big green! How’s it feel?”

Brian considered for a moment before a slow grin spread across his face. “Dunno what you’re talking about... door was busted... when I got here.”

Amira howled at that. “Haha, yeah! Oh man, BG, I think you’re gonna fit right in here.”

The girls’ room was on the third floor, and the malfunctioning keycard meant they couldn’t use the elevator, so they had to walk all the way to the back of the building and take the stairs. Vicky explained along the way that the electricity she had to keep her body charged with would sometimes mess with cheap electrical components, which is why her key card was perpetually fucked up, no matter how often she got it replaced.  
  
“I tried to explain it to Principal Giant Spider, but he just went on about budget cuts and fund appropriation forms.”  
  
“Which he tried to blame on ‘ _Mr. LaVey’s latest destructive escapades_ ’,” Amira chimed in. “Like, are you kidding me? Fuck off! As if Damien’s dads aren’t loaded to the teeth and pay for every tantrum he has.”

“He’s probably embezzling it,” Vicky mused.

“Oh, he’s definitely embezzling it,” Amira agreed.

Brian spun that little tidbit over for a second. “So, wait. Damien is a rich Daddy’s kid?”

“Haha, yep. He’s the crowned prince of the eighth circle of hell” Amira helpfully clarified.

“Oh my god,” he groaned. “That explains so much... about his everything.” He'd managed to catch the attention of a bored, spoiled brat in a bad way. No helping it, but he wasn't about to let himself become a plaything in what ever kind of game passed for fun for a demon prince. Besides, everyone else seemed friendly enough.

As they neared the stairwell, Brian felt some hesitation. He paused while the two girls began to climb. Vicky noticed his hanging back first, and turned back to him with a look of concern.

“Brian, you coming?”

He reached for the hand rail and tested his weight on it first before trying to take a step up. His hip joint protested, and his knee creaked as he shifted his balance forward. Muscles he was reasonably certain he shouldn’t have been so keenly aware of only yielded grudgingly as his ankle popped. None of it hurt, exactly, but all of it felt tight, like springs and wires all rusted into a heap. 

“Ah, shit,” Vicky said and walked back down to him. Amira paused a bit farther up, the crease in her brow growing deeper by the second as she watched them.

“Sorry,” Brian offered her a disarming smile, “guess I’m... a bit of a stiff.”  
  
“PFFFT!” Vicky thwacked his arm, but gently, not wanting to risk his balance. “Okay, dork. Extend your hand out and make a fist.”

He tried, and mostly succeeded. The same sort of rusted feeling ground through his joints, slowing down his movements, but he didn't feel like anything was truly stuck. He could hold out his arm, bend the elbow and flex all his fingers closed and open again. Vicky placed her hand against the inside of his elbow joint and had him moved through the motion a couple more times. He found each time was a little easier and smoother than the last.

Vicky nodded, seeming satisfied with whatever data she’d gathered from that. "Post reanimation rigor is pretty common for us undead. Looks like you've just got a temporary case. Honestly, you're remarkably well preserved!"

"Uh... thanks. I think."

"Ahh," Vicky's cheeks darkened, tinged a color Brian would almost describe as purple. "Sorry, that was a weird thing to say wasn't it. Fuck, I made this awkward."

"No. You're just... being nice." Brian trusted a little more of his weight to the hand rail, and pulled his other foot up to the next step. "Thanks." 

She offered him a shy smile and her hand in reply. Brian felt a little guilty leaning on her support as they climbed the stairs, but Vicky was more sturdy than she looked. It didn't bother her at all. "I'm sure one of my charging units will help! The right current oughta wake up those nerve pathways."

He wasn't entirely delighted by the idea of being electrocuted into better mobility, but Vicky seemed to know what she was talking about. By the top of the first flight, Brian could feel the tightness starting to give way. He was still slow, but that seemed to be more an issue of signal delay than physical limitations. Halfway up the second flight, he felt capable enough to try offering some small talk. "You're pretty knowledgeable... about this stuff." 

"Yeah. It's. I guess you could say it was an area of special interest for me."

"Was?"

"Got a little too personally involved." Her tone stayed light, but Vicky's eyes refused to meet his. Brian hastily dropped the subject. He wondered for the first time if maybe having no past was some kind of blessing. He wasn't sure he wanted to remember how he died.

If he'd upset his new friend, then Vicky had certainly shaken it off by the time they got to the top. Amira was leaning against the open door waiting for them. 

“So hey, when do I get to feel up the new guy?” By her grin, she was just teasing, and Vicky opened her mouth to retort, but Brian put his arm out and flexed.

“Any time... you ask nicely.” 

“Holy SHIT, yes!” Amira grabbed his bicep, then experimentally pulled down. Brian’s arm didn’t move, but Amira’s toes came up off the ground. “Oh my god. How much do you lift? Hey, do you think you can carry me?”

Brian shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Well now I gotta test it.”

Vicky started an attempt to intervene with, “I don’t know if that’s such a good-” but Amira had already placed both hands to brace herself, and with a grunt she heaved herself up and over Brian’s arm.

“Haha, sweet!” He remained passively immobile while Amira wiggled and shimmied until she’d pulled her legs up and settled in a sitting position, perfectly perched on his shoulder. She weighed hardly anything, but he felt her warmth though his bones every place she touched. Made sense that she’d run hotter, but he hadn’t expected that to chase out the lingering rigor. 

“Yessss! Vick! Vicky, we can do jousting! Call Scott!

Vicky heaved a breath Brian hadn’t known she was holding, while Amira happily beamed down at her. “Okay, well your equilibrium doesn’t seem to be out of whack, that’s good.”

“Nope.”

“Let’s just be careful with pushing body limits while you’re still figuring stuff out, okay? We don’t even know if you feel pain yet, you could be doing some serious damage without even knowing it.”

He hadn’t thought of that. And he felt a little bad for having worried Vicky. Here they were, only hours old acquaintances, but she was really trying to look out for him. Brian smiled, more aware of the way his missing flesh pulled around his teeth than he had been before. “Feels alright... But I’ll take it easy.”

“Good! Now, our dorm room is this way. Follow me!”  
  
“Onward, faithful steed! HeYAH!” Amira kicked his ribs with her heel. Barely a tap, but it made him burst into laughter, deep and slightly wheezy. The girls joined in, giggling as they all charged down the hall together.


End file.
